


Impossible Things

by amberwing



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, M/M, Sad Anders, dragon feelings, melancholic waffling, we're getting married...but you're a dragon!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwing/pseuds/amberwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That one where Hawke is a dragon and all the assorted problems that come with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible Things

The most obvious hardship of being in love with Hawke is, well, he’s a _dragon_.  Anders has a lot of problems, most a lot larger than something like romantic fulfillment, and yet here he is.  Sitting on the Wounded Coast watching the dragon he loves cavort in the waves like a particularly large Mabari. 

He hasn’t even really come to terms with the fact that he is in love.  Obsessed, he provides himself.  Paying entirely too much attention to frivolities that he _cannot_ entertain, not now, not anymore.  There are greater things at stake.  It is— _unjust_ to divide his attention this far; he can’t allow himself to focus on anything but the task at hand.  He can’t—he won’t—

He closes his eyes and buries his head in his hands.

There comes a massive sloshing and splashing as Hawke scrambles to shore.  The dragon is about as large as schooner, and makes about as much noise as one would expect from something of that scale trying to pull waterlogged wings out of the sea.  Anders lifts his head in time to see Hawke start to shake—again, so painfully reminiscent of his sister’s dog. 

Hawke _can_ be graceful, if he chooses.  Anders is quite aware of the fact.  He’s seen Hawke in battle, in flight.  There are dragons as the Maker created them, the massive, dusky and winged females and their stony drakes, and then there’s whatever Hawke is: sinuous and black with bloody streaks of crimson. 

But there’s nothing elegant about him dripping seawater and holding fish about the size of a dinghy in his jaws.  It’s wriggling frantically enough that Hawke has to pause in his drying procedures to rear back onto his haunches and grapple at it with his forefeet.  He manages to shove it back into his jaws far enough that he can—

A massive, horrible crunch echoes down the beach.  Anders can’t help but wince.  Well, that’s a dead fish for sure now.  And then, of course, the shaking continues, with such enthusiasm that Anders is soon enjoying a sudden afternoon shower.  Seawater shower.

Well, he laments. He needed a bath anyway.  His coat, though... Feathers and saltwater aren’t really meant to mix.  He wrinkles his nose and unbuckles, folding the matted thing beside him on the rocks.

Hawke trots up and drops the fish in front of him.  It lands in a spray of sand that narrowly avoids covering him.  Anders draws his feet up anyway, giving the dragon a reproachful look. “Do you mind?”

Hawke cocks his head to the side, his jaw gaping in an approximation of a grin.  It took a while to figure out that’s what it means, what with all the _really big teeth_ it shows.  He flops down, wings stretching briefly before falling into neat folds of silver silk along his sides. _No, not at all,_ he signs with his forefeet, talons clacking against one another. _Thanks for asking!_

Anders rolls his eyes. “Well, let’s see, then,” he sighs, levering himself down from the rocks to join the dragon in the sand.  The fish comes up to his knees, and is about as pleasant as a fish can be in such close quarters: Hawke’s teeth must have punctured some of its gut, because it’s already stinking.  Anders pinches his nose with one hand and trails a hand over its scales with the other, running over recipes in his head: the oil can be used to soothe skin rashes and as a meal supplement, bone for needles... Scales?  Well, he can sell those to some of the luxury traders; don’t they use it for cosmetics and jewelry?  

Hawke’s head snakes down to join him beside the fish.  The dragon’s eye is about as big as a dinner plate.  He makes a curious sound, and Anders smiles to him.

“Trying to figure out what to do with this,” he explains, tapping the scales. “I’m not a fishmonger, so I doubt I can come up with _enough_ uses for it.  A shame to waste it.”

Hawke’s gape-toothed grin returns.  This close, Anders is reminded that Hawke could swallow him whole pretty damn easily.

_Don’t worry about waste_ , Hawke signs. _I love tuna._

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to eat it raw, again?”

Hawke levels him with an offended look. _It’s a delicacy in Antiva_ , he signs. _You uncultured swine._

He can’t stop himself from reaching to rub a palm on the soft, velvet-black skin below Hawke’s eye, one of the few places that isn’t covered in scales.  Hawke’s eyelids—both pairs—flutter, and a soft purr rumbles out of him.

“Too easy,” Anders tells him.  Hawke grumbles, and then falls prey to Anders’s nails massaging him. 

_Unfair_ , he signs. _You’re still swine, taking advantage of me_. With that, his head comes to rest on the sand beside Anders’s legs, heavy muzzle bumping at his shins like a cat begging for treats.

“And who runs the world, but swine?” he asks, and sighs.  Right.  Back to the task at hand.  He can feel Hawke watching him as he steps away, the invitation too tempting to face; it would be easier to lie down with Hawke and talk the afternoon away, pretend that they’re a pair of would-be lovers instead of what they truly are. 

His heart aches at the thought.

If Hawke were human; if _he_ were human—

Too many ifs.  Better to keep to what he knows, what he _can_ do, is meant to do.

_You’re thinking again_ , Hawke writes in the sand as Anders surveys the fish.  He turns away from the crudely drawn message. _Won’t you tell me?_ The words seem to follow him, Hawke’s superior reach letting him scrawl in a giant circle around them.

“Better if we just get back to work, Hawke,” Anders says.

 

 

 

 


End file.
